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The EDM Council, a not-for-profit forum for financial institutions to address the business strategies and practical realities of implementing solutions to manage data across the enterprise, today announced that three new firms have joined the Council as organizational sponsors. The Council also reported that membership in the organization over the past six months has grown 69% from 45 to 76 firms. Participation has also grown significantly and now includes over 220 individuals as active participants in the Council activities.
The new sponsor members include: ADP Brokerage Services Group, the first transaction services provider to join the Council; Standard & Poor’s, the first data vendor; and Deutsche Börse/Avox, the first exchange to join the Council as sponsors. These organizational sponsors will work in concert with member firms to further support and promote the priority work streams identified by the Council to drive critical Enterprise Data Management (EDM) initiatives in the financial services industry.
The addition of these three sponsors brings the Council a step closer to completion of the second phase of its business strategy. The EDM Council Board of Directors has set a maximum of initial vendor sponsors invited to join the Council until the governance can be transferred to the financial institutions. The Council expects that transformation to be complete by mid-2007. Each new sponsor firm brings substantial experience in various aspects of data processing, including client and counterparty, back office and clearing and settlement data issues that will prove invaluable as the Council evolves from EDM analysis to implementation of the four prioritized work streams, including business metrics, best practice implementation, supply chain management and regulatory tracking.
“According to recent research, the Financial Services Industry is forecasted to make significant investment in enterprise data solutions that are being driven by risk, regulatory and customer satisfaction initiatives. We believe that the EDM Council is providing needed focus in this space through the Council’s working groups. We look forward to working with the members of the EDM Council in quantifying the need for Enterprise Data Management and driving appropriate industry-wide solutions,” said Richard Stumm, Vice President, ADP Brokerage Services Group.
“We are extremely pleased about our membership in the EDM-Council. The Council has a good cross section of financial institutions as members, and we are particularly interested in getting involved in the business metrics working group as this relates to our efforts on the data quality benchmarking side,” said Ken Price, CEO of Avox.
“Standard & Poor’s looks forward to working closely with the EDM Council and its growing membership to help develop effective solutions to manage data across the enterprise. We strongly believe that enterprise data management should be a business priority, and as an EDM Council sponsor, we will support many of the Council’s objectives,” said Jim Taylor, Managing Director of Standard & Poor’s.
“ADP Brokerage Services, Standard & Poor’s, and Deutsche Börse/Avox have all demonstrated their early commitment to the concepts of EDM and a thorough understanding of the value it delivers to financial institutions,” said Michael Atkin, managing director, EDM Council. “By joining the Council, these leading companies take their place at the collective table and will be instrumental in helping implement the EDM agenda. The Council stands firm in the belief that EDM progress will be built based upon the collaboration of all participants in the information value chain,” maintains Atkin. “We view their sponsorship as a positive sign of the benefits of a closer alignment between all those with a stake in the transactions process and we welcome their engagement and involvement in the work of the Council.”
